Stowaway
by Megandhi
Summary: Everything was normal in this screwed up world, until she came along and rewrote the whole game plan. Now Zack lives and returns without his blond companion. Will this stowaway help save the planet, or cause its eventual demise?


Look guys! It came back. Because I fixed my flakiness and reorganized it wabam. There you go. R&R is the sunshine to my life and these stories are photosynthetic. So there you go.

**Stowaway**

**_The Wanderers of Hell_**

It was her smile. It was his future. Such simple and clichéd objects, and yet they possessed more meaning to the man that anything else. Onto them he held with all his might. Still, how odd that these frivolous fancies could be essentially everything to him. The smile, the future, they belonged to other people… and yet in their destruction he lost everything.

His name was Zack Fair and he was a man in chains. He was trapped and deluded by all he previously held dear. Fighting for honor and fighting for what was right, he lived. And in a last drive for redemption, he was defeated.

After everything, he still lived. Worlds constructed in seeming solidarity crumpled under the weight of the villain. His strength was irrelevant. Was he still the hero?

_What good is honor now, Angeal?_

He tried, and he failed. What had he left?

Remember what matters. He just had to remember what to _fight_ for.

His hell was a glass tube, next to his best friend, deep underground where the only souls that ventured so far into the depths were the monsters masquerading in white. They were the demons, and he reduced to an existence barely worthy of a lab rat. _They_ were the monsters. How they would later regret what they did… How he would make them pay. These silent promises of revenge seemed to be all that kept him going. That, and her smile.

And it was he had to suffer that agonizing pain which can only rip a man's soul apart, fiber by fiber, while he must endure every moment in too-complete consciousness. It was continuous agony, mako forcefully seeping into his body. He could feel it ripping through his skin, melding to his wounds. The green liquid was laying siege upon his mind as insanity became a very real possibility.

Fingers clenched tight into fists, he had to fight. He had to _stay strong_.

It was his penitence. He was part of the monstrosity, and so couldn't be too bitter that it swallowed him. He got screwed. And yet, he had to survive. Eyes wide open, he had to face it.

It was her smile. It was his future. He had to live for them. He had to fix everything.

And he wasn't going down without a fucking _fight_.

Even while his body was being mutilated into something it shouldn't be. While he was toyed with, as if he too was something inhuman. He had to keep hold of those things that mattered. Death itself was not a viable obstacle. He had some unfinished business to take care of.

"Hello?"

A voice from the fog broke through his mental barrier. It was a jingle of a murmur, fresh like soft bells. It was almost familiar.

Wait, was that Aerith? The solution surrounding him fogged out the voice, so he couldn't be sure. But it couldn't be. He must be hallucinating. He had to be.

"Hey!"

It wasn't Aerith. As the restraints of pain weakened he regained some sort of awareness, too morphing the voice back to reality. Needles of acid speared his nerves, but he heard it. It was still soft, small too, but more forceful. With an air of impetuousness and frustration it demanded attention.

Slits of emerald tint opened to his vision, the light at first so harsh his eyes immediately retreated. When sight was granted, he finally understood. He took in the dusty bookshelves that lined the back wall, warped from age and water damage. The operating table, crammed with books in askew hurried piles and mountains of tools, that was there. Everything existed in twisted contortion. The glass of his prison was all too close.

And then there was her.

Her figure distorted through the glass, she was just standing there. Waves tore across her face as she stared straight through him. It couldn't be true, the figure there. Still, her image remained. And… she was so young. She didn't belong in a place like this.

One after another, her feet stepped towards him slowly and purposefully. He couldn't get a clear picture of her, but her stare stuck through the illusions. Closer and closer she walked, undeterred by the threat of scientists.

Wait, where were they now? The room was conveniently empty. It was an observation felt deep in the pit of his stomach. Something wasn't right. It couldn't be real.

Now only inches from the tank, she stopped. In that moment, Zack's heart skipped a beat.

It was her eyes. They were pitch-black in their entirety. Unblinking, they didn't waver from his face. Her hand pressed to the glass, and her lips mouthed the words:

"_Wake up!"_

* * *

><p>"Huh?"<p>

The gasp echoed past through the tunnel, bouncing from broken girders and the like, but received no response save the ever-present wind from the farther regions of this cave. A thousand panicked intakes of air descended the passageways, and yet they were all alone.

"…Nothing. It's just… nothing."

The girl sighed, rubbing her face to expel the anxiety that yet another nightmare had caused. Palms pressed tight to her eyes, teeth ground in frustration, she couldn't get rid of them. The images, the sounds, that sick feeling. She could still see them. She could still hear them, from back then.

Monster. Pariah._ You don't belong._

Thin fingers trembled before her face. To the wayward eye, they were perfectly normal, betraying no outward suspicion. Even as they curled around themselves into tight fists, they remained inconspicuously plain.

Her hell was an invisible past that just wouldn't disappear.

A quiet drip sounded behind her, pulling her back into reality. She turned and gazed into the depths of her underground hideaway. It couldn't be an intruder. No one would dare venture this far out. No one would come looking here in the skeleton city of rot and abandon. No one sane, anyway.

Pausing with pursed lips, the suspicion wouldn't shake. But it never went completely away…

Her predicament wasn't so bad, honest. After all, once existence is all but extinguished, what happened in the end was little care at all. It just didn't matter.

Bringing her knees to her chest, she allowed herself to disintegrate in the subtle _drip drip_ off of the stalagtites.

After all, it just didn't matter.

None of it did.


End file.
